


light

by tsukiakari



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games), Nancy Drew – HER Interactive (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukiakari/pseuds/tsukiakari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In March 1989, things begin to fall apart for the Thorntons once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	light

The house echoes in the night with the footsteps of the past, and she lies in her room and thinks of them all.

"You needn't worry, sweet one, you'll never be leaving this lovely place."

For an instant she thinks she can hear the motor of Austin's boat, rumbling gently across the glassy water. Glassy, like her mother's eyes had been.

"Just imagine it! Every night, a gorgeous ball - and no ordinary one, no ball filled with boring, stuffy old men. Sweet boys, with waistcoats and ascots, can you see them? All of them waiting to dance with you."

Her ceiling sets to creaking, and she gnaws at her lip anxiously. The darkness is a physical weight on her chest, the worst kind of pressure, a thousand times harsher even than dread.

"And your grandmothers and grandfathers, too! Why, sometimes, sweet one, I wish I were there now."

Clara throws the quilt to the floor and rises, cold wood prickling against her stocking feet. Her bedside lamp gives no comfort, a light that exists only to fight the darkness and not to beat it back. Her thoughts slip back and forth between the coming of day and the expectation of Austin, weighing them.

The ceiling above keeps creaking, as it does every night. Sometimes the nights are endless, but this one is endless as eternity itself, as though the moon has turned away and hidden its face forever. Somehow she finds herself not quite discomforted by the thought.

She walks to the window and slides it open, bit by bit, struggling against the old, rain-warped casing. Crickets chirp in the night and she can see nothing of the world outside.

Then, slowly, the boat's motor sidles into her hearing, gradually enough to make it feel hallucinatory, and quickly enough to twist her stomach with its nearness when she realizes. Eager nervousness shudders down her spine and she reaches up, smoothing her hair, patting at her cheeks like a debutante.

"Think of it, sweet one! A beautiful boy, his face just simply alight with happiness and contentment, offering you his hand, inviting you to dance!"

She smiles, and mouths the words.

"No, Mother. I'll take Austin's embrace over that of your boys."

\-----

The house echoes in the night with the footsteps, and she wakes in her bed at the quiet pattering.

"Why do you say such things? They're still our ancestors, and we at least have to respect that."

She doesn't care who's up at this time of night, or what they may be doing. The March night is warm, but not so warm as to make her climb out of her bed.

"I think of them as what they were in the best of times. Humans, just like you and I are, you know? They had their flaws, just like you and I do, but that's not to say that they're unredeemable."

A shiver runs through her, and she doesn't know why. Opening her eyes, she stares up at the darkness, letting it console her in its deep majesty.

"And they're all gone now, so why should we linger and think about what they did wrong? They can't even apologize now."

Harper lies perfectly still and smiles to herself, in quiet tolerant condemnation at her sister's words. The day she forgets about her family's past, the day she learns to accept it, will be the day Thornton Hall is torn to the ground and her heart with it. Her love for the place, and her hatred for those who built it, disturbs even herself.

The footsteps have long since faded away, out of the house and into the far distance. For a while she strains her ears, listening for them, but they do not return. The wind rustles against the windows instead, as though gladly trying to provide her with noise.

As with every sleepless night, her thoughts start to float through the house, through the family tree, and this time they settle upon the paintings. Each location, each expression on each face - she has each detail of those paintings memorized.

She'd wished time and time again to add to them, to give them some meaning other than simply the commemoration of lives long past and long sullied. Their faces unnerve her, watching her, looking past her to whatever might stand behind her shoulder. They need meaning, something to make their worthless presences useful.

"I think that being part of a future generation gives us a responsibility, kind of. They can't apologize, so we have to forgive them instead."

She shakes her head against the pillow, driving her hair further into chaos.

"Silly Charlotte, always willing to walk in with your eyes open."

\-----

The house lurks in the night with no lights glowing in its windows, and he lets his gaze wander over it.

"Only things you gotta know - eyes open, mouth shut."

A noise flickers across the grounds, something like footsteps or the fluttering of leaves down to gravel. He looks in its direction out of instinct, and sees nothing.

"You ain't got nothing to talk about at times like these. Never know what might happen, what you might see. Can't afford to be crowing like a chatty rooster when the night's dark and the wind's rising."

The ground's hard under his feet, wind humming cool through the branches of the tree above. The starlight is more than enough to see by, cold and white. As always, somehow peaceful, somehow alive.

"Quiet, boy! Let your mind do the talking, it's a sight more logical than your mouth."

Wade stretches the tension out of his shoulders and wanders across the graveyard, choosing the spaces where he'll leave no footprints behind. The leaves whisper around him, the gravestones dim shapes against black grass. He feels as awake as he's ever been in the day, even more so, with the night sharpening his senses into clarity.

He recognizes each grave by its place, if not by sight alone - Rosalie, Ruby, Ethel, the Grey Lady. Then the stairs, leading up to the memorial for Franklin and its statue, towering into the sky like a blot on the stars.

Even the crypt is dark, no line of light creeping out from between its double doors. He's never felt the need to enter there, even when Charlotte would have lent him the key. Being outside in this place is his love.

A boat's engine resounds distant off the water, drawing nearer to the island with each passing moment and then fading into complete silence. He considers walking to the docks for an instant and drops the thought almost as quickly. Outside the quiet tree-draped cemetery, nothing interests him.

"Can't say very honestly I love that house, boy. But this place, it liked me, and I like it back. You listen to me, boy. This place welcomes you. Get your manners ready when you come here."

He sinks onto one of the lower steps and closes his eyes, breathing the clear air.

"Yeah, I like it back myself."

\-----

The house echoes in the night with the footsteps of the past, and she sits in her room and thinks of them all.

"Why can't you understand it? I don't care if they're dead, I don't care if they're alive. If they do something wrong, it's wrong!"

She draws her fingers gently across the harpstrings, letting them murmur into the air. A murmur - something Harper has never been capable of, always letting her thoughts explode into a crowd with stubborn, dramatic eagerness.

"Yeah, I know what you feel over there. Kind of like a comfort, right? Like you're surrounded by the past and you know it's not going anywhere."

The breeze wafts through her curtains, setting them drifting across the floor. For a moment she wants to join Wade in the cemetery, where she knows he must be, but her body refuses, keeping her silent and still on the footstool.

"What, you're planning your party already? There's no way I'll be wearing that kind of gown. Balls just aren't for me, Charlotte hon, you know that."

Charlotte's dress hangs in her closet and hovers before her mind's eye, tones of crimson and black as piercing and poignant as life and death itself. It's nearly taken on a world of its own for her, this ball - for all that it's nine months away, she feels the excitement and joy of it as sharply as though it were due in an hour.

Her desk still holds the notes she'd made earlier that night, now swathed in the darkness. She props her chin on one hand and strokes a hand over the curving roof of her jewelry box, letting the metal draw the heat from her skin.

Belatedly she notices the footsteps, passing by her door. It's likely Clara, a thought that makes her smile fondly. She can all but see her, eyes wide and nervous, with her hair in a ponytail over her shoulder.

Her thoughts pass through the hallway, past the presence there, across the sleeping shapes of the others, to her sister. Every time Harper enters her thoughts, comfort follows, like the effect of a gentle drug. And every time the comfort comes, she thinks of her family, and she has to smile.

From the beginning of her family tree, down the years and through the families, she loves them all. The children who died in infancy, the young men who died in wars, those who died of old age, those who are living now - she loves them all.

"My ball will be for you," she says.

**Author's Note:**

> In my headcanon, somewhat supported by the Thornton family tree, Clara initially begins acting strange partly because she's pregnant with Jessalyn. This was the night it all began.


End file.
